we may not unreasonably infer its original adoption by Divine Wisdom. This language of poetic incident, and, if I may so speak, of imagery, interwoven as it was with the popular belief, infused into the hymns, the services, the ceremonial of the church, embodied in material representation by painting or sculpture, was the vernacular tongue of Christianity, universally intelligible, and responded to by the human heart, throughout these many centuries. Revelation thus spoke the language, not merely of its own, but of succeeding times; because its design was the perpetuation as well as the first propagation of the Christian religion. Whether then these were actual appearances or impressions produced on the mind of those who witnessed them, is of slight importance. In either case they are real historical facts; they partake of poetry in their form, and, in a certain sense, in their groundwork, but they are imaginative, not fictitious; true, as relating that which appeared to the minds of the relators exactly as it did appear.* Poetry, meaning by poetry such an imaginative form, and not merely the form, but the subject-matter of the narrative, as, for instance, in the first chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke, was the appropriate and perhaps necessary intelligible dialect; the vehicle for the more important truths of the Gospel to later generations. The incidents therefore were so ordered, that they should thus live in the thoughts of men; the revelation itself was so adjusted and arranged in order that it might insure its continued existence throughout this period. Could, it may be * This, of course, does not apply to facts which must have been either historical events or direct fictions, such as the resurrection of Jesus. The re-appearance of an actual and well known bodily form, cannot be refined into one of those airy and unsubstantial appearances which may be presented to, or may exist solely through, the imaginative faculty. I would strictly maintain this important distinction. they may be guaranteed) through + By all those who consider the knowledge of these circumstances to have reached the Evangelists (by whatever notion of inspiration CHAP. inquired, a purely rational or metaphysical creed have survived for any length of time during such stages of human civilisation? II. } I am aware that this may be considered as carrying out what is called accommodation to an unprecedented extent; and that the whole system of what is called accommodation is looked upon with great jealousy. It is supposed to compromise, as it were, the truth of the Deity, or at least of the revelation; a deception, it is said, or at least an illusion, is practised upon the belief of man. I cannot assent to this view. From the necessity of the case there must be some departure from the pure and essential spirituality of the Deity, in order to communicate with the human race, some kind of condescension from the infinite and inconceivable state of Godhead, to become cognisable, or to enter into any kind of relation with material and dimly-mental man. All this is in fact accommodation; and the adaptation of any appropriate means of addressing, for his benefit, man in any peculiar state of intelligence, is but the wise contrivance, the indispensable condition, which renders that communication either possible, or at least effective to its manifest end. Religion is one great system of accommodation to the wants, to the moral and spiritual advancement, of mankind; and I cannot but think that as it has so efficaciously adapted itself to one state of the human mind, so it will to that mind during all its progress; and it is of all things the most remarkable in Christianity, that it has, as it were, its proper mode of addressing with effect every age and every conceivable state of man. Even if (though I conceive it impossible) the imagination should entirely wither from the human soul, and a severer faith enter into an exclusive alliance with pure reason, Christianity would still have its moral perfection, its rational promise of immortality-its approximation to the one pure, spiritual, incomprehensible Deity, to satisfy that reason, and to infuse those sentiments of dependence, of gratitude, of love to God, without which human society must fall to ruin, and the human mind, in humiliating desperation, suspend all its noble activity, and care not to put forth its sublime and eternal energies. of dimness and poetic character tion: they seem like a few scattered fragments preserved from oral tradition. CHAPTER III. COMMENCEMENT OF THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JEsus. CHAP. III. } sumption of character. NEARLY thirty years had passed away, since the Period to birth in Bethlehem, during which period there is the asbut one incident recorded, which could direct the public public attention to the Son of Mary.* All religious Jews made their periodical visits to the capital at the three great festivals, especially at the Passover. The more pious women, though exempt by the law from regular attendance, usually accompanied their husbands or kindred. It is probable that, at the age of twelve, the children, who were then said to have assumed the rank of "Sons of the Law," and were considered responsible for their obedience to the civil and religious institutes of the nation, were first permitted to appear with their parents in the metropolis, to be present, and, as it were, to be initiated in the religious ceremonies. † * There is no likelihood that the extant apocryphal Gospel of the Infancy contains any traditional truth. This work, in my opinion, was evidently composed with a controversial design, to refute the sects which asserted that Jesus was no more than an ordinary child, and that the divine nature descended upon him at his baptism. Hence his childhood is represented as fertile in miracles as his manhood; miracles which are certainly puerile enough for that age. But Ac it is a curious proof of the vitality + Lightfoot. Wetstein, in loc. III. Visit to CHAP. cordingly, at this age, Jesus went up with his parents at the festival to Jerusalem* ; but on their return, after the customary residence of seven Jerusalem. days, they had advanced a whole day's journey without discovering that the youth was not to be found in the whole caravan, or long train of pilgrims, which probably comprised almost all the religious inhabitants of the populous northern provinces. In the utmost anxiety they returned to Jerusalem, and, after three days †, found him in one of the chambers, within the precincts of the temple, set apart for public instruction. In these schools, the wisest and most respected of the rabbis, or teachers, were accustomed to hold their sittings, which were open to all who were desirous of knowledge. Jesus was seated, as the scholars usually were; and at his familiarity with the law, and the depth and subtilty of his questions, the learned men were in the utmost astonishment: the phrase may, perhaps, bear the stronger sense they were "in an ecstasy of admiration." This incident is strictly in accordance with Jewish usage. The more promising youths were encouraged to the early development and display of their acquaintance with the Sacred Writings, and the institutes of the country. Josephus, the historian, relates, that in his early youth, he was an object of wonder for his precocious knowledge, with the Wise Men, who took delight in examining and developing his proficiency * Luke, ii. 41. 52. † According to Grotius, they had advanced one day's journey towards Galilee, returned the second, and found him the third: in loc. III. in the subtler questions of the law. Whether the CHAP. impression of the transcendent promise of Jesus was as deep and lasting as it was vivid, we have no information; for without reluctance, with no more than a brief and mysterious intimation that public instruction was the business imposed upon him by his Father, he returned with his parents to his remote and undistinguished home. The Law, in this, as in all such cases, harmonising with the eternal instincts of nature, had placed the relation of child and parent on the simplest and soundest principles. The authority of the parent was unlimited, while his power of inflicting punishment on the person, or injuring the fortunes of the child by disinheritance, was controlled; and while the child, on the one hand, was bound to obedience by the strongest sanctions, on the other the duty of maintaining and instructing his offspring was as rigidly enforced upon the father. The youth then returned to the usual subjection to his parents; and, for nearly eighteen years longer, we have no knowledge that Jesus was distinguished among the inhabitants of Nazareth, except by his exemplary piety, and by his engaging demeanour and conduct, which acquired him the general good-will. The law, as some suppose, prescribed the period of thirty years for the assumption of the most important functions; and it was not till he had arrived at this age, that Jesus again emerged from his obscurity *; nor does week, or the day which had com- * Or entering on his thirtieth year. According to the Jewish mode of computation, the year, the |